


Ann Arbor

by eponine119



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, the 70s, the other love triangle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponine119/pseuds/eponine119
Summary: They wake up in Ann Arbor. Sawyer, Juliet...and Kate.(What if they never got off the sub in 1977?)
Relationships: Juliet Burke/James "Sawyer" Ford, Kate Austen/James "Sawyer" Ford
Kudos: 10





	Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor  
by eponine119  
March 1, 2020 

They wake up in Ann Arbor. 

Sawyer, Juliet... and Kate. 

Dharma holds a meeting when they arrive, to tell 'em what's what. Sawyer smooth-talks them onto the Initiative's good side. Everybody who remembers why they arrived in handcuffs is still back on the island. 

“Everything on the island is fine,” is how the meeting begins. 

Kate turns on Sawyer. Her eyes are wild as a caged animal's. “We have go to back.”

“We have to think,” he hisses at her, and looks at Juliet. 

“Please,” Kate says to Juliet, who nods and smiles at her. Puts her hand on her arm. Sawyer sees the calming effect it has on her. 

He and Juliet have money in savings, three years of Dharma salary just waiting for a rainy day. They rent an apartment. He's helping Juliet hang up new gingham curtains when she says, “I want Kate to stay with us.” 

“No.” 

“We have two bedrooms here,” Juliet says mildly. He just looks at her. “We have each other. She doesn't have anyone. Except us. Think about how she must feel.” 

He tells himself he doesn't care about how she must feel. “She's been alone before. She'll be fine.” 

“It's 1977, James. She hasn't even been born yet, has she? It's a little different from running away from home.” 

He just widens his eyes at her sarcastically. 

“It's our fault she's here. If it wasn't for us, she wouldn't have been on the sub.” 

“It's her own fault,” he says. “She was followin' us, as usual, and got herself caught.” 

“We can't abandon her.” 

“She won't say yes.” 

“I'll talk to her,” Juliet says simply, as though that's all it will take. 

“I'm not saying yes,” he tells her. “It's a bad idea.” But he reaches out to brush back the hair that's fallen out of her ponytail, and the discussion is over. 

The next day, Kate follows Juliet sheepishly into the apartment. She stands in the entryway for a long time, clutching her backpack. Like she's going to bolt. “Hey,” she says to Sawyer. 

“Hey yourself,” he replies, as gruffly as he can, and looks at Juliet, just so she doesn't get any ideas. 

They settle into a routine. He gets a job managing a used bookstore. Juliet becomes a research assistant at the university. Kate works in the Dharma offices so she can keep an eye on things.

No news comes from the island. 

A lot of people in the organization go back on the next sub. The hardcores. But there are others who stay and who drift away from the Initiative. They have Lara Chang over for coffee sometimes. She becomes a friend. Sawyer can't believe he's watching Miles grow up. 

It's cold in Ann Arbor. 

They buy coats. They put up a Christmas tree. Juliet and Kate bake cookies together in the small kitchen. He stops for a minute once he's done putting up the lights and watches them through the window. It's not any kind of life he ever pictured, but it's working. They're happy. 

“Kate's not happy here,” Juliet says softly into his ear in bed that night. 

“So what,” he replies. 

“Don't you want her to be happy, James?” 

He growls a sigh and doesn't answer. 

“She needs to find someone to be with.” 

“She's still in love with Jack.” 

Now it's Juliet's turn to be silent. 

“You're the one who wanted her here, not me.” 

“Keep your voice down,” Juliet warns him. “She'll hear you.” 

“I don't care what she hears,” he declares. To prove his point, he grabs Juliet and rolls her underneath him, so quick she gasps with surprise. He's tired of having to try to be quiet, to swallow back all the growls and the moans and the screams, because of their roommate. He just wants to love the woman he thinks of as his wife. 

In the morning, over coffee, no one can look each other in the eye. In the cold light of the morning, he sees the marks he's left on Juliet's skin. He was rough with her last night, wanting to provoke a response. There's a bruise around one wrist, and a red half-bite half-hickey on her neck, and her lips are still swollen. Across the table, he sees dark circles under Kate's eyes and realizes her freckles have faded into nothingness. 

Sometimes Juliet gets carried away in whatever it is she's doing at work and doesn't make it home for dinner. Sawyer puts two aluminum trays into the oven that night. “I know Salisbury steak's your favorite,” he says teasingly to Kate, like nothing ever happened, as he starts tidying up the kitchen. 

“I'm not hungry,” she says. 

He's about to ask her why not when he picks up her coat from the chair to hang it up. It's heavy on one side. He reaches into the pocket, knowing what he's going to find. 

“What's this for?” he asks, pointing the gun at the floor. 

“You know what it's for,” she snaps. 

“Murder-suicide?” he asks. “You hate it here that bad? Or you're gonna force your way on to the Dharma sub and then what?” 

“It's for him,” Kate raises her voice over Sawyer's rantings, and there are tears in her eyes. “Wayne. My fa--stepfather.” 

He puts the gun on the table. “You can't change anything,” he says. “Whatever happened, happened.” 

“How do you know for sure?” 

“I just know.” 

“Maybe that's what you tell yourself because you were too much of a coward to stop it when you had the chance,” she says.

It takes everything he has in him to still his hand rather than striking out at her.

“You ain't even born yet,” he says. “You give any thought to what happens to you if you do this? You won't even exist.” 

“Maybe that would be better for everyone,” she says. 

The timer on the oven dings. “Shut up and eat,” he tells her, and slings one of the dinners across the table in her direction. The gun stays on the table between them. 

Juliet comes in when they're just about finished. He gets up to kiss her at the door and feels the way she melts into his arms after a long day. “Did you save some for me?” she asks, about dinner. 

When he turns, the gun is gone and so is Kate. A second later, the door to her room closes with a jolt. 

“Must have been something I said.” He's not sure why he lies to her. 

“Maybe we should finally have that threesome,” Juliet jokes, completely deadpan. 

“Funny,” he says, and starts making her a sandwich. They sit down together and he watches her eat. She notices, a couple of times, the intensity of his stare. But she doesn't ask, and he still doesn't tell her. 

Not while they watch a movie on television, and not while they're in bed. 

He can't sleep. He's got to fix this. By morning, he knows how. He doesn't like it, but he has a plan. 

Here's how it's supposed to go. 

Juliet's working late again. Sawyer goes into Kate's room. Sits down on the bed. Gives her some speech. Calls her Freckles. Then he kisses her, slow and steady. Puts his hand on her thigh and slides it up her leg, making it clear what he's really after. 

Then she'll shove him away. “Get out, Sawyer.” 

“Now why you gotta be like that?” he'll ask, and drag his thumb against her bottom lip. 

“We can't do this to Juliet.” Kate's eyes will be blazing. 

“What she don't know won't hurt her --” He'll look surprised when she slaps him, harder than he expected. 

“You're disgusting.” 

“Don't tell her,” he'll say, to sell it. The only true thing that he means. 

And the next day she'll be gone, because it's the right thing to do. 

He's got it all planned out. 

Of course it all goes wrong. 

He goes to her room. “Juliet's working late,” he says from the doorway. He pauses a moment. It's not too late to turn back. He doesn't have to do this. Then he steps inside. He sits down on her bed, close enough to her he can smell whatever it is she uses on her hair. 

“Please,” she says, and turns to him with such naked longing and despair on her face that it hurts him to look at her. She curls her fingers into the front of his shirt and presses her mouth to his. 

What happens next feels like it goes too fast for him to stop it. She undoes his jeans and pushes him down and climbs on top of him, closing her eyes and letting out a soft sound as he fills her. She starts kissing him again, setting a rhythm. He puts his hands on her back, and they drift down to her hips. Helping her as he starts thrusting. He's getting close and he knows she's not, so he puts his hand between them, using his thumb against her, and then he feels her convulsing around him and he's gone too. 

He tries to hold her after, but she struggles against him, out of his arms. He lies back as she goes into the bathroom. The shower starts up. He knows she's crying in there. He knows this is wrong. All he can think is – she was supposed to push me away. Over and over and over. 

The next night, when he gets home, Juliet is sitting at the table. The bottom drops out of his stomach because he can already tell she's angry. She knows, he thinks. He doesn't know how, but she knows. 

“Kate's gone,” she says. 

“Gone where?” 

“I don't know.” She sounds worried. 

“Well, maybe we can find her,” he says, playing along. 

“James,” she says. Her eyes searching his. “You slept with her.” 

He drops into the chair. “She told you.” 

Juliet's eyes turn wild, and he realizes he just fucked up. Again. Kate didn't say anything. But he did. Just now. 

“It wasn't --” he sighs. “I wanted to make her leave.” 

“Did you try talking to her first?” 

Now he thinks that might have been a good idea. Might even have worked. 

“Are you going after her?” There's fear under her coldness. 

“No.” He glares at her. “Unless you want me to.” 

She shakes her head and laughs a crazy laugh. “Did you plan to do this the night before the sub left on purpose?” 

“How the hell would I know when the sub leaves anymore? We aren't in the damn Dharma Initiative.” It takes another moment for him to process it. “She went back to the island?” 

“I made a few calls. The sub's gone, and she was on it.” 

“Shit,” he says. 

“You got that right.” Her voice is shaking. 

“At least she didn't go to goddamn Iowa to try to wipe herself out of the space time continuum.” 

“What are we going to do?” Juliet asks. 

He doesn't know. Can't say. There's a long, long silence between them.

Finally he asks, “Are you kicking me out?” 

She shakes her head. He watches her face and sees her emotions boil over. “Please don't leave me, James,” she says, and she's crying now. Begging. “Please.” He's never seen her cry like this. 

“Hey. Hey, sshh.” He goes to her, kneeling down in front of her. He puts his hand over hers, and with the other, he touches the side of her face. “I'm not going anywhere. I've got you.” She folds against him, sobbing uncontrollably. 

All that talk about Kate being alone, not having anyone – he sees now it was Juliet being afraid. Afraid she was going to be the one left abandoned in the 70s. She did all this because she thought it would be how she could keep him. 

He loathes himself for not seeing it until now. 

He sees now too, that last night was Kate's goodbye to him. She was going on the sub, no matter what. 

He should have just talked to her. 

He could have pushed her away. 

He just keeps breathing. Juliet's not crying as hard now. He keeps brushing away her tears until they stop. She regains herself and looks at him, hard and icy. “If you ever do something like that again --” 

“I won't,” he promises, and he means it. 

So they keep going. Working. Loving. When Lara Chang tells them she's moving to California, they decide to go along too. 

“I ain't much for winter,” he says. “Besides, don't you miss the ocean?” 

She smiles. “I'll see if I can get some boxes at the liquor store.” For them to pack their things.

“Time for a road trip,” he says, and he takes her hand. She gives him a measuring look. “We can stop in Vegas.” 

“We are not betting on the Superbowl,” she says. 

“Not for gambling,” he says. “We could let Elvis do the deed.” 

“Elvis is dead.” 

She's not getting it, so with a sigh, he gets down on one knee. And gives her a look. 

“Get up, James,” she says, and he thinks she's saying no. 

“Juliet --” 

“Yes! Okay? Get up.” She's half-laughing, half-crying, and she throws her arms around him. “I didn't think you were ever going to ask.” 

“I was waitin' for you to ask me,” he says, and she hits his shoulder. “Ow,” he protests. 

“Kiss me,” she orders, and he does. Long, and slow, and perfect. 

In the days leading up to the move, she packs boxes. He hauls things to the donation bin. She calls all her old Dharma contacts, but can't get any word on Kate. 

If she comes back, she won't know where to find them. Then she really will be alone. But she made her choices, and they can't stay for just in case. Not anymore. 

The last day, they shut and lock the door. They turn in the keys to the apartment. Sawyer takes the wheel. Juliet has the maps. He puts the car in gear. “Don't look back,” he says, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “You ready?” 

“For what?” she asks. 

“Our new start.” 

She doesn't say anything. He reaches for her hand and gives it a squeeze. Then he's turning the wheel, pulling away from the curb, and they are on their way. 

(end)


End file.
